The generational wealth gap
It makes sense that old people would have more money than young people, because they have been working and saving longer. But this wealth gap is massive by historical standards. In 1984, old people were a mere 10 times richer than young people. Not only have old people gotten richer since then, but the median net worth of households headed by young people has declined considerably.
Households headed by adults ages 35 and younger had a median net worth of $3,662 in 2009. That marks a 68% decline in wealth, compared to that same age group 25 years earlier.
Over the same time frame, households headed by adults ages 65 years and older, have seen just the opposite. Their wealth rose 42%, to a median of $170,494.
It gets worse, for young people: “37% of the young households held zero or negative net worth in 2009, up from 19% in 1984.”
The fact that this gap is getting worse helps explain why so many older Americans don’t get it, when the young people complain. The amount of debt young Americans take on today is way higher than it used to be, the opportunities for class mobility are shrinking, and the life choices that worked for earlier generations looking to join the middle or upper classes (college and homeownership) have largely become massive rip-offs.
[…]
…It is the primary argument of the austerity pushers (and their allies, the deficit hawks) that young people should give in and accept that “we” can’t afford to sustain the fairer society that older Americans enjoyed. That argument would be more convincing if the current Bad Times were affecting everyone equally, instead of simply the already young and poor…
School spirit
A school should earn your love, loyalty, and respect. Those things ought to be contingent on how well it fulfills its mission to educate and enrich.
If you graduate thinking that it’s your duty to defend your alma mater no matter what it does, no matter who it hurts, then that school has failed. Such a school should be condemned and rehabilitated, not defended and celebrated.
LeVar Burton for the fucking win, y’all.
Geordi has spoken!
(Source: saturniinae, via charlietangofoxtrot)
"Well, but so what? A bunch of spoiled kids are having trouble finding jobs—so is everybody else. Here’s so what. First of all, they’re not spoiled. They’re doing exactly what we always complain our brightest students don’t do: eschewing the easy bucks of Wall Street, consulting or corporate law to pursue their ideals and be of service to society. Academia may once have been a cushy gig, but now we’re talking about highly talented young people who are willing to spend their 20s living on subsistence wages when they could be getting rich (and their friends are getting rich), simply because they believe in knowledge, ideas, inquiry; in teaching, in following their passion. To leave more than half of them holding the bag at the end of it all, over 30 and having to scrounge for a new career, is a human tragedy."
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William Deresiewicz, current article in The Nation. Testify. (via kunstwissenschaftlerin)
See also: Our Universities: Why Are They Failing? by Anthony Grafton.
(via cupofchi)
Glitter Cup Prank
It’ll take those guys hours to remove all the glitter. Now’s a good time to pop in the “Glitter” DVD featuring Mariah Carey.
I want to smack the shit-eating grin off her face. This is the kind of prank that gives pranks a bad name.
“Those guys” won’t spend much time removing all the glitter that’ll be all over their room and the hallway. The janitors/custodial people will.
As the daughter of someone who works in custodial services at a college and deals with the disgusting messes left behind by jerky students: Thanks for adding more work to their day, you privileged fuckface.
(Source: College Humor)
"It is unfair for admissions to ignore our gender, our race, and our ethnicity when these things have never been ignored before. They have been used to mark our bodies, other us, and effect us our entire lives. Don’t forget to consider that too."
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My friend Elaine. (via jenigrins)
Elaine speaks the truth.
(via somewhitenonsense)
(via ttssgg)
Do minority students get more than a fair share of college scholarships? That myth reared its head earlier this year after a Texas nonprofit, the Former Majority Association for Equality announced plans to give scholarships only to white males. The group claimed that white males are disadvantaged because they don’t “fit into certain categories or ethnic groups.” So Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Fastweb.com and FinAid.com, put that idea to the test, and found that white students actually “receive a disproportionately greater share of private scholarships and merit-based grants.”
Kantrowitz crunched data (PDF) from both the 2003-04 and 2007-08 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, which showed that white students are 40 percent more likely to win private scholarships than non-white students. And Kantrowitz finds several college-specific scholarships only for white students, like UCLA’s 66-year-old Werner Scott Scholarship, worth $4,000, which is “restricted to Caucasian students from Hawaii who are not of Polynesian blood.”
Even when a scholarship doesn’t explicitly note a racial preference, white students are still at an advantage since scholarship sponsors “select for characteristics, activities and talents of interest to them.” Black students, for example, are much less likely to participate in equestrian, water, and winter sports than their white peers, which makes them ineligible for scholarships related to those areas.
White students, even those who “have no demonstrated financial need,” are also at an advantage when it comes to receiving funding directly from universities. Kantrowitz found that they get more than 76 percent “of all institutional merit-based scholarship and grant funding, even though they represent” less than 62 percent of the student population.
